The Condamine Case

“’Tes a queer place seemingly. . . . Full of ghostesses, what with beasts coming down from the church roof and her that walks, hair blowing like smoke in the gale. ’T’esn’t a place to be out alone at night.”

In London, rising young movie director Stephen Latimer learns of a gentrified family in Somerset with an old history of witchcraft and haunting. Scenting an excellent subject for his next film, he visits their ancestral manor.

Pleased with his discoveries, Stephen returns to London, planning to spice up the family legend still further for the film. But he is soon to learn that after his departure Death came to Little Baring.

Inspector Hugh Collier of the Yard arrives on the scene, facing a case that concerns not one murder, but two. Whodunit? Someone within the narrow Condamine circle in Little Baring? Or someone farther afield? And is witchcraft really dead in Little Baring?

The Condamine Case was originally published in 1947. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.